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I tried it on Vista and most of the browsers failed dismally. XP is probably better, but all these solutions rely on hacks that cause problems, e.g. filters fail or the wrong version of JavaScript is used.

A totally separate IE installation in a VM or on another machine is the only real alternative.

ceeb Sorry but that's mostly wrong, I've done extensive testing on a lot of the various different solutions and while the Multiple-IE or IECollection packs do suffer those problems, IETester, Microsoft SuperPreview, Adobe BrowserLabs and the Spoon "browser kit's" work perfectly as a sandboxed environment. I have been using a mixture of those for a while now and have yet to come across a single instance where the rendering (JavaScript or otherwise) is differential to the actual Virtual Machine environment... and I can say this because I've tested side-by-side against the VM for IETester and Spoon's installers. The information you have is highly inaccurate and based on the false information that has been floating around the web, it took a heavy debate earlier in the year just to convince some people that IETester used the correct version of JScript for each IE version (I ended up using resource hacker a hex editor and some decompiling to prove that the application did reference the correct independent files). I have also not had any issues with filters, hacks or conditional comments on those mentioned either.

IETester is one of the most buggy programs I've used. Many of the other solutions just show you screenshots, they aren't a fully functioning browser, some won't let you use flash / javascript / png fixes etc. I have PLENTY of experience with the results of these various programs being different to the real browsers.

I agree with StormRider. The main problems I've encountered with every non-VM'd solution is that the IE5.5/6 24-bit PNG filter fails. In addition, the transparency effect filter is ignored so I suspect most other filters won't work either.

It's not just IETester. If you install then uninstall IE7, IE6 filters will fail (unless MS have fixed that recently). To fix it, you need to copy old versions of dxtrans.dll and dxtmsft.dll back to your IE6 installation folder.

IE was never designed to work alongside other versions. None of the sandboxed solutions is ever truly the same as a real installation -- rely on them at your own risk!

Well as I said, I always use them in co-ordination with a VM environment, I'm not saying their fully dependable however if your testing your website for general faults their a very good indicator to whether something is going to "snag" in IE6. My general rule of thumb is use IETester for the early stage testing (as it uses very little resources and is just sitting on the taskbar waiting to be used), then before you move it to production you run it past the virtualized environments to double check. I feel that using VM to test at each stage of the design (which is what I do rather than just testing and fixing at the end - mostly because I am a UX designer and pretty anal about fundamental flaws ) has benefits as jumping between the desktop and a VM feels a lot like swatting a gnat with a nuclear warhead.

PS: Strangely I've never had the PNG transparency issue in IETester, it shows it as it does in the VM in each version, no idea why yours would be any different.

I used it on XP and one of the versions (6 I think, probably the most important on there) didn't work at all - if you opened an IE6 tab it just crashed the whole thing. I've had that happen on a couple of machines.

If xp mode (to test websites in other browsers) is really the only reason your purchased windows 7, then you spent too much and didn't need to upgrade. A simple, and free, application called IE Tester (google it) allows you to view your website in all versions of IE (at the same time as well).

Windows 7 is likely to have the same compatibility as Vista. Some of the IE Collection browsers work, but many don't and those that do have problems. IETester is possibly more reliable for quick and dirty testing, but VMs/XP Mode is the most reliable method.

Windows 7 is very good OS i have used. It is compatible for all software and the IE6, 7, 8 are very good compared to firefox. you can do it natively in XP, without installing any other support like add-ons and settings.

I what to get this corrected...but the whole wrong idea is spreading across the web. XP Mode is available to all who can install Windows Virtual PC! Even Home Premium. It should not even be called XP Mode instead maybe Seamless Integration because it works for VM guest running Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. It is added to the VM guest when you install the Virtual Addons. The only thing with Professional and Ultimate is the free copy of a Windows XP license. But Home Premium is not locked out of the Seamless Integration as long as you have your own copy of Windows XP (or other).

True enough. You don't need Windows 7 to have multiple copies of IE for testing.

I've been using Virtual PC 2007 on XP Pro SP3 for quite some time; maybe a year and a half... I don't think it's supposed to work on XP Home but it will. I had it running on an XP Home machine before I put it on my main workstation. I'm using it to test IE6 & IE7 and I even used it to beta test IE8. I even installed Windows Server 2003 on Windows XP and did a bunch of Sharepoint development with it.

I can't imagine an easier way to test IE than by using Virtual PC 2007.

* Fun fact... You can install multiple copies of the parent XP distro and it will activate so you don't have to worry about the 15 Day activation issue.

That's awsome. I've been trying to get my wife (a graphic designer) to get use to VMWare for a long time not to mention the huge amount of space it takes up having 2 full VM's. Maybe now she'll be convinced to let me put win 7 on her laptop.

Anyway, to my gripe. Everything went well, but after starting IE6 or IE7 and then closing it, the virtual machine was left running. Isn't there some way to make it hibernate or shutdown the virtual machine once the program is closed?

I noticed that when you close a window of an app, it leaves the VM running. Isn't there some way to say that when the app(s) are closed to shutdown or hibernate the VM's?

Also, I tried sharing a VM under my user name and my wifes user name. Seemed to get some odd errors on the VM when I ran it under one user, shut it down, and started it as another user (like windows had to revert to an old registry backup). Anyone know how to succesfully share a VM between users? Any idea why this happens? Do I need to use the same VM config file as well? Is it that I had two config files pointing to the same VHD?